A Little Tenderness And Truth
by faithfullly
Summary: Finn Hudson is a lost artist in New York City. He has lost his inspiration and motivation, but when he one night meets a strange woman on his street, something inside him changes.


**A/N:** I was randomly looking through all my old documents and stumbled upon this story about artist!Finn I wrote in July last year, so I apologize for the sloppy writing on the parts I didn't feel like changing. I've only written as far as one chapter and about 700 words on the next chapter, because something about it discouraged me just after I had finished it, but I can't remember what. Still, I got interested in this story again, and I might do something with it…

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Finn bites his lip as he draws the charcoal over the rough paper, his hand shaking nervously when he hears the sigh of the impatient model – who is actually more of a customer to him. The man is tapping his foot, Finn sees it in the corner of his eye, and he will probably get up and leave any second now. Finn scribbles more frantically – he needs the money.

"Excuse me, mister?"

Finn looks up from his sketchpad, seeing the frowning face of the man who has asked Finn to draw him in exchange for ten bucks. It's not much, but if Finn would sketch ten portraits for the same price, he'd already have enough money to survive for a day. Ten dollars is a good start. "Yes?" Finn asks shortly before resuming his gaze to the sketchpad, frowning at the rough sketch of a man in front of him.

"How long is this going to take? You promised me a nice portrait in ten minutes for ten dollars."

"Don't worry." Finn says, trying to pull off a smile as he tries to resist the urge to draw a huge, gross mustache over the man's face. "I still have time to–"

"It's been twenty minutes."

Finn bites his lip again, shaking his head to clear all the mean thoughts about to boil over in his head. "Just a little while more, please." he says, looking up at the man pleadingly. He rolls his eyes, but agrees to sit back while Finn tries to finish the sketch as quickly as he can.

After a few minutes more, Finn proudly shows up the portrait (which has to be one of the ugliest he has done all month), and he sees the glare the man gives him as he shoves the ten dollars in Finn's hand before snatching the portrait and leaving. Finn sits back on his stool, sighing loudly while looking down at the ten dollars in his hand. It's a start but nowhere enough, and business is going way too slow today.

He sits there in his little street corner, staring down at his black, mussy hands as people around him hurry past, not wanting to get caught by the poor artist trying to make his living on drawing portraits of people and charging them for it. It's not that Finn is a bad artist. He's actually really good – that's at least what people tell him. He might not be one of those super famous artists who make billions on their art, but he's pretty good for being one of those street artists.

It's just that Finn is not that good with inspiration. Maybe he's not that good with motivation either, since it took him three days to get his butt out on the street with his sign saying "Portraits $10". The streets of New York used to be such a good source of inspiration for him, and the mass of tourists who used to crowd around him, wanting "a portrait from a real New York artist" were so interesting that he could finish their sketches in less than ten minutes.

Everyone used to have such an interesting story to tell. Nowadays they all seemed as grey and gloomy as Finn, and they sat there in silence, watching him draw the charcoal over the sketchpad in frustration while they grew more and more impatient. It made Finn even less inspired and less motivated than before, and it killed him inside. He was an _artist_. He needed every little ounce of inspiration he could get, just like he needed air to breathe.

Now he's just sitting down on his stool, staring at his hands. Nothing around him is interesting. He's grown accustomed to the honking of the yellow cabs on the busy street beside the sidewalk, and the people don't even stop to read his sign or look at the samples of his sketches. No one else is interested, so why should he be interested?

Finn used to be one of those guys who stood up and greeted everyone who got near him, asking them to sit down for a few minutes while he drew a portrait of them. Most of them used to be so happy with the result that they paid him a good price for it, but nowadays they all seemed reluctant to even paying the small amount of ten dollars.

Maybe he sucked after all. Maybe all his artistic talent had surged out of him like all the color in his world. Maybe that was the reason why he was always out of the grey shades when he was painting in his apartment. Maybe that was why he could take over twenty minutes in drawing a portrait that used to be finished in less than ten minutes.

New York seemed to be such a good place for inspiration. At least from the view of someone who was born in Lima, Ohio. Ever since Finn had graduated high school, he had been sure that he was going to New York someday. After graduating, however, Finn moved in with his best friend Puck, spending one year helping out with his pool cleaning business and earning enough money to afford an apartment in New York.

Finn's stepbrother, Kurt, lived in New York as well, so Finn wasn't entirely alone when he got there. He just had to take some time to get used to living on the tenth floor in a big apartment on his own. He quickly filled the apartment with paintings in different sizes. The big city really did its best to his inspiration and motivation back then. Sometimes late at night, he used to sit in the dark and just listen to the sound of the street outside, and he would paint in the dark and see what it had turned out to be in the morning.

Two years later, Finn closes his window and goes straight to bed after a long day sitting in the street. All his motivation and inspiration for painting is gone. The street outside is nothing but a noise that keeps him awake at night, with the feeling of his life passing him by eating at the back of his mind. He knows he should do something about it. He knows he could just get up, grab a brush and start painting – but nothing comes out.

His apartment is full of paintings, but when Finn looks at them he doesn't recognize them. There's the painting of the black silhouette of a man, with a grey dock behind him, and Finn doesn't even know when he painted this. He frowns at it before putting it back with the other, unfamiliar paintings filling his otherwise empty apartment.

It's a waste of canvas, paint and brushes. Finn barely has the money to pay his rent, but still he keeps stopping by the art supply store on his way home, and he buys two or three canvases and whichever color of paint he is out of. They don't cost a lot, but they do get expensive if you barely make fifty bucks a day and if you don't use them for anything else than grey, dark and very messy paintings that end up lying on your floor.

Finn knows he should care more. He knows he should get another job which would actually be lucrative. Sketching portraits used to be a good enough job for Finn, but not anymore. Not unless he somehow regains his motivation, but that seems highly unlikely right now. Finn doesn't want another job. He doesn't see himself as one of those guys in a suit who sits behind a desk, working for nine hours inside an office. He's pretty sure he doesn't even own a suit.

It starts raining. Finn hasn't noticed how everyone around him has suddenly hurried up their steps and how the raindrops smudge the black remnants of charcoal on his hands. He starts gathering up his samples, putting them into his bag before hoisting it over his shoulder and making his way back home. He's in no hurry, and the rain isn't killing him.

After a twenty minute walk that usually takes less than ten minutes, Finn is walking up the stairs to his apartment, leaving a wet trail after him from his soaked clothes. He runs his hand through his wet hair before pulling out his keys from his bag. With a sigh, Finn steps inside the dark apartment, throwing his coat and bag aside before walking into his living room. You can barely tell that it's a living room, from all the paintings leaning against the walls and the couch (which happens to be the only piece of furniture in the room, apart from the TV). The walls are blank, mostly because Finn hasn't bothered to hang up any of his paintings.

Finn walks into his bedroom and starts peeling off the wet clothing sticking to his skin. He looks out through the window and sees a little ray of sunlight peeking through the thick clouds. There used to be a time when he would curse at the weather for turning nice as soon as he's made it home, but now he just shrugs and goes to his bathroom to take a shower.

After showering, getting dressed and putting his wet clothes on the clothing line in his living room (which Kurt always pointed out that was the grossest thing about Finn's apartment), Finn grabs his easel, a blank canvas and his brushes before crawling out through the bedroom window. He knows he's not allowed to go out on the roof, but he still does. His landlord has already told him three times, that neighbors are complaining about it being too dangerous, but Finn doesn't care. The view over his street is great from the roof, and Finn's best paintings were born there.

With a sigh, Finn sits down and sets up his easel in front of him, putting up the canvas as well before starting to go through his colors. He decides to go with blue and black – the only colors that he's almost out of. After painting a black streak over the entire canvas, Finn frowns at it. He doesn't even know what he's painting, but he continues drawing more dark streaks and a few splashes of white here and there.

Finn doesn't notice that it's already getting dark out, and he has spent way too many hours up on the roof. He looks down at the street and frowns again. There are only a few cars driving around, but no people at all. Finn adds another splash of white to his painting before looking again. He sees movement from a person. The person – it's a she – catches his eye, and he finds himself staring at her as she walks. There is nothing about her body language that seems familiar to him, but there is still something about her that makes him unable to take his eyes off of her.

She seems to be wearing very little clothing. As if her legs were completely bare, but then there are killer heels on her feet. She must be at least three inches taller with those, and she doesn't even seem tall with those on. Finn smiles to himself as he thinks about how hard it must be to walk in those things, but his attention is quickly drawn away to what she's wearing. He doesn't know what those suits are called, but it looks like a swimming suit to him – except that it has sleeves. He frowns. Why would anyone wear that at – Finn checks his watch – eleven in the evening on a Tuesday night?

Intriguing. That's what she is. The way she walks, swinging her hips from side to side as if someone is staring at her butt or someone is just waiting behind the corner to pounce on her and rip that suit off of her. She's sexy – Finn figures she must be a professional. Finn has seen several women of her kind, walking around teasing old men until they pay them for a night of their dreams.

But she's not like those women. Although she has all the right moves and her body language has to be the smoothest he has ever seen on one of those – Finn knows she's not one of those. There is something innocent about the way she moves as well. Something that tells him she's just a girl. Someone who does this against her own will – someone who has something bigger in store, but is forced to do this to reach that goal.

Finn is interested. He gets up from where he's sitting, sliding inside through his bedroom window silently. When he runs down the stairs, he thinks about how stupid this might be. He could be wrong, although his instincts don't usually defy him. Still, Finn decides to take it slow when he exits the building. He presses himself against the wall, peeking out slightly to look at the woman standing in the corner of the street, as if she's waiting for someone.

When Finn is convinced that she's not going to do him any harm, he slips out from his hiding place and walks up to her from behind. He opens his mouth to say something, but he's caught staring at her legs. Those are the longest, most beautiful legs Finn has ever seen on a woman that short, and she's wearing fishnet stockings that bring out her legs just perfectly – and Finn doesn't know whether he wants to touch them to see if they're as soft as they seem to be, or use them as a model for a painting. He licks his dry lips before finally daring to speak up, "Excuse me, miss?"

She turns around in alarm, staring at him with wide eyes. As soon as she sees him, she seems to calm down and she straightens her posture, eyeing him up and down. "Yes?" she says calmly, and her voice is like her legs – soft and beautiful in every single way.

Finn coughs slightly before speaking again. "I saw you from… um, my window, and I haven't seen you here before, so I wondered if you're okay. You don't seem to be from… you know, here." Finn says, and he hears himself babbling – and he's sounding so stupid that he just wants to leave the conversation right away.

"Really?" she says, giggling as she turns around to face him fully. "You don't think I look like someone who could make it out in the street at night?"

Her dark eyes pierce through Finn's body, and he feels his mouth getting even drier from her words. She's speaking in such an innocent, yet teasing voice. Finn doesn't understand how she can pull that off. He gulps almost too loudly. "W-well, I haven't seen you here before so I thought you'd be lost or something…" Finn trails off because he feels himself getting more and more awkward.

She still has that same smirk plastered on her face when she shakes her head. "No, I'm not." she says, biting the inside of her mouth as if she is hiding something. Finn nods, as he doesn't really know what else to say. She seems so confident, with that curled hair and the revealing clothing. It still fascinates him to no end. He doesn't want to leave, but he soon finds himself turning around to go back inside. He stops when he hears her voice. "What about you?" Finn turns around and looks at her in confusion. "Are you lost?"

"No." Finn replies, biting his lip. "Not really."

"Really?" she says, tilting her eyebrow at him in a somewhat teasing way that makes Finn feel extremely awkward.

He clears his throat before he replies. "Really."

After seeing her nod one more time, Finn retreats into his apartment, leaning up against the wall with a somewhat relieved sigh. He needs a pencil – and paper. His breathing sounds like he has just ran a marathon when he rummages through his piles of crumpled papers, trying to find a blank one. As soon as he finds one and has a hold of a pen, he starts sketching.

He sketches her. The long legs, her fishnet stockings, the black revealing top, her breasts, her curled hair – her _face_. Finn manages to knock over his entire case of pencils when he searches for the red one. He colors her lips dark red. She had dark red lipstick, like one of those stage actresses back when Finn wasn't even born. When Finn is done, he leans back and looks at the sketch. It's just a sketch, but still it intrigues him the same way she managed to intrigue him.

After staring at the sketch for longer than necessary, Finn runs into his bedroom and leans out through the window, trying to catch a glimpse of her. She's not there anymore. She must've gone home or found someone to spend the night with. Finn crinkles his nose at the thought of her going home with some old man. That's no life for someone her age – that's no life for _anyone_.

Suddenly Finn catches himself. He's caring about someone he doesn't even know. She's a complete stranger, and he cares about her. It even scares himself, because he never cares about anyone else but himself. There is no one he has had to care about ever since he moved to New York. It's always been his drawings, paintings and himself. Finn doesn't even care about the people he draws on a daily basis. He doesn't even keep the drawings himself – but the one in his hands is his.

Finn looks down at the sketch in his hand. At the woman – girl – in dark, revealing clothes, with curled hair and red lips. He gets to keep that one. He gets to keep _her_.

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**A/N:** Thank you for reading, and don't forget to leave a review! (-:


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